Knowing Who You Work With

One of my friends pointed out to me that one of the improvements in the new bidding system was actually really useful. By publishing a list of all the positions and who is filling each, we can now have a better idea of with whom (or for whom) we will be working. That is outstanding!

When I first joined the foreign service somebody told me that who you work for matters much more than where you work or what you work on. In my first tour I worked for and with an outstanding team of people. It was truly an incredible experience, and I could not imagine why anyone would have complaints about working for the Department. It was at this point that someone advised me to find a good supervisor and follow them around. I thought that advice was a little bit absurd. Boy was I ignorant.

In subsequent tours I learned not only is it incredibly important to find good supervisors, but that it is even more important to avoid bad ones like the plague. It began with horror stories from my colleagues, and was all very abstract until I lived that own personal hell myself. Bad supervisors and co-workers can make even paradise seem like a living hell.

So as I travel through the foreign service, I make it my own personal mission to plant in the ears of people I like the names of the worst people I've ever worked for. There's the guy who only likes male employees who kiss his ass incessantly, and who will bend every rule in the book to ensure that his little proteges work for him, even if they aren't at all qualified for the jobs. He also has arbitrary rules about EERs he writes, which seem to boil down to "women should never be recommended for promotion." Then there's the woman who actually has no experience for the job she's in, doesn't really understand what it requires, but really likes to make sure her people are "doing things!" Also fun is the screamer. You know the type (or perhaps you are fortunate and you don't yet know the type). All communication with staff should be done above a certain decibel level and should include only really obscene words. My own personal favorite is the single boss who lives to work. He likes to have most of his meetings in the evenings and on weekends, and must take notetakers along with him. Working all the time lends the mission a sense of urgency that makes us all feel much more important. Isn't that fun?

This is all very subjective though, and the number of people I can warn is really limited (unless I take to running through the FSI cafeteria shouting a warning like the town-crier. Actually, that might not be a bad idea for one or two of the above...) Wouldn't it be great if there were a website, like the "rate your professor" websites, where we could post reviews of supervisors? Supposedly all DCMs and CGs now have 360 reviews done of them before they're hired. But the candidate selects his reviewers, and the results are, of course, never made public. I'd really like to write a review of one of my old DCMs (the guy who thought women shouldn't be promoted), but I don't see that as likely.

In the meantime, the DG's proposal is our best option. We can now look at the list, and do due diligence with all our friends. It really does matter with whom you work.